The state's canvassing board Tuesday ordered that all 2.1 million ballots cast in the gubernatorial election be counted again --- by hand.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the board accepted a report by the Minnesota Secretary of State that found Democrat Mark Dayton leading Republican Tom Emmer by just 8,770 votes. Because the difference is less than one-half of one percentage point, it automatically triggers a recount.

The recount is slated to begin Monday in each of the state's 87 counties and should be finished by Dec. 7. Then the canvassing board will review any challenged ballots and certify a winner on Dec. 14.

Good for Minnesota! Great to see that somebody in this nation still believes in actually counting ballots in a democracy!

Short of counting them publicly, by hand, at the polling place, on election night, in front of everyone, including video cameras, with results posted at the precinct before ballots are moved anywhere, MN has previously shown itself to have one of the best, most transparent sets of procedures in the country for publicly hand counting all of their paper ballots (all of their ballots are paper ballots, thankfully.)

They do all of the above in close races which trigger hand counts. By necessity, they happen at central locations instead of at the precincts, obviously, so questions of chain of custody can still arise to introduce doubt into the process. From what I can tell, however, as based on the superb Franken/Coleman '08 U.S. Senate hand count, their chain of custody procedures are also very good and so the entire process is about as open and transparent as could be asked for in such a case.

For that, the state also owes no small debt of gratitude to Sec. of State Mark Ritchie for his expert, transparent, non-partisan work in overseeing such counts --- at least if the last big one was any indication --- in such a way that when they're over, the winner and their supporters know they've really won, and the loser and all but their most dishonestly misinformed supporters know they've lost. That's what democracy is supposed to be about it. In Minnesota, happily, it still is.

Another very important point is we ALWAYS audit the elections with a limited hand count, automatically, even when there is not a close race...the state randomly chooses precincts and hand count the result, to ensure the machines count was correct.

also, since Franken Coleman, they have tightened the ballot security, putting them under lock and key and sherrif deputies 24/7 til recount etc.

MN still does too much vote by mail absentee ballots, but other than that...pretty darn good

Every state should do this paper ballots that are randomly, automatically audited if machine count used inititally

Counting at the polling place after close of polls allows a corrupt polling place time to falsify the ballots and also to modify the count in view of machine counts and in collusion with other locations. It is clearly irresponsible or worse to repeatedly pepper this news blog with shameless advocation of a system and criticism of other systems without at the very least putting forward metrics/criteria for the comparison.

The American Lawyer (http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/11/another-minnesota-recount.html) has an interesting report on who's been hired by each side. Dayton has gone with the same people Al Franken used (Kevin Hamilton and Mark Elias from Perkins Coie), while Emmer has not gone with Norm Coleman's team, with the exception of Tony Trimble, a solo practitioner. The new faces are Michael Toner from Bryan Cave and Eric Magnusson from Briggs and Morgan.

Tony Trimble is a former chair of the FEC and former chief counsel of the RNC and Bush-Cheney 2000. Eric Magnuson is a former chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and, most notably, was a member of the canvassing board that decided the Franken-Coleman contest. He is also a former law partner of Tim Pawlenty's.

RE: X93FE (comment #3). You are so concerned about counting at the polling place that you have ignored Brad's qualifiers: "counting them publicly, by hand, at the polling place, on election night, in front of everyone, including video cameras...."

Counting immediately means there is no way to know what the overall results are, so how much to cheat will not be known. It is MUCH, MUCH easier to change the results at a central tabulator. It requires a huge number of conspirators to pull it off at hundreds of separate locals simultaneously.

Earlier this week, (12/9, I think, at the deadline), the Oregon GOP exercised its prerogative to pay for a recount of the Governor contest, in which (first count) Kitzhaber(D) bettered Dudley(R) by about 17,000 votes out of about 2,ooo,ooo.

My figures are uncertain, as my attention has been haphazard. I think a half of 1-percent (.005 of total) triggers an automatic recount, and on 2,ooo,ooo votes (if there were that many) the margin would have had to be less than 10,000 to be required to recount at State expense.

The GOP may still renege, I think, or withhold payment and, either way, the recount stop before it starts. I don't know, but since announcing an intended recount, public response seems to range from unenthusiastic to no notice. Anyway, unremarked.

Oregon is all absentee ballots, all the time. 100% paper trail. I am a hearty advocate of Oregon's Vote-by-Mail. My interest in Minnesota's recount is 'how much' (quantity and percentage) changes from first count to recount, compared with 'how much' changes in Oregon's replay.

I expect that, (because I hope that), Vote-by-Mail proves to have the slimmer error or correction. If the margin was 17,ooo from the initial count, I expect the recount margin is plus-or-minus less than 170, that is, between 16,830 and 17,170.